Way of the Owl

Way of the Owl
Info
Type	Way
Set	Menagerie
Illustrator(s)	Marco Morte
Way text
Draw until you have 6 cards in hand.

Way of the Owl is a Way from Menagerie. It allows you to draw up to 6 cards in hand, like Watchtower.

FAQ

Official FAQ

• If you already have 6 or more cards in hand, you do not draw any cards.

Strategy

Way of the Owl lets you play any Action as a draw-to-X card, drawing up to six cards in hand, an effect similar to playing Watchtower. This flexibility can be useful support in a number of scenarios: for example, supplementing your other draw, counteracting discard attacks, or drawing on an Outpost turn. Occasionally, however, the fact that any Action can act as a terminal draw card can allow you to create draw-to-X engines where you couldn’t otherwise.

With Way of the Owl supplying the draw, the two other major components you need for a draw-to-X engine are villages and suitable payload. Given any Action in your deck can be pressed into service as a draw card, it may even be a good idea to have an excess of villages and terminal space, both to make it more likely that you find a village at the start of your turn and because you might have to play some villages using Way of the Owl to continue your turn. Otherwise, the Action that you play using Way of the Owl should be the card whose on-play effect you will need the least; this means you might gain weak cheap Action cards solely for use as Way of the Owl, or that cards whose main value is through their while-in-play effects (e.g. Haggler) are your best Way of the Owl options. Like other draw-to-X engines, Way of the Owl benefits from using Action-based payload (e.g. Coven) rather than Treasures, and thus may be more viable when thinning of your starting Coppers is available. Alternatively, discard for benefit effects can help with otherwise junk cards; non-terminal ones, like Oasis or Hamlet are preferred.

Villa synergizes exceptionally well with Way of the Owl. With both present, you can play your Treasures, buy Villa, return to the Action phase, and play your new Villa using Way of the Owl to draw to a six card hand, though it is important to note that by playing Villa using Way of the Owl, you will not get a Buy back. This gives you tremendous early cycling and draw, and may even open the door for unusually early gain-and-play opportunities. This acceleration often causes games to end quickly in a pileout.

Way of the Owl has a strong interaction with Village Green because you can discard all the cards in your hand for a discard effect (most notably Tactician), and React a Village Green to play it using Way of the Owl, redrawing six cards to continue your turn.

Like many other Ways, Way of the Owl is especially important in the opening of Kingdoms with Shelters, as you can play Necropolis using Way of the Owl. This drastically increases the likelihood of generating , and may be especially strong if you can play Necropolis on turn 1 and add a strong card before triggering an early reshuffle.

Versions

English versions

Print	Digital	Text	Release	Date
		Draw until you have 6 cards in hand.	Menagerie	March 2020

Other language versions

Language	Name	Print	Digital	Text	Notes
German	Weg der Eule			Zieh Karten, bis du 6 Handkarten hast.	(2020)
Japanese	フクロウの習性 (pron. fukurō no shūsei)

Trivia

Official card art.